Feature Channels: Addiction

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44 percent of people who died from fentanyl overdose had previously been prescribed fentanyl by a medical professional, and 37 percent of those people had a prescription for fentanyl within 60 days of their death.

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Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) will present Nora Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a part of the National Institutes of Health, with its highest honor, the Cura Personalis Award, at a ceremony on Tuesday, Nov. 13 at 4:00 p.m.

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Just as the population of older adults is increasing worldwide, so too is the number of older adults who consume alcohol. Older adults are more sensitive to the adverse effects of alcohol due to age-related health impairment and physiological changes in metabolism and body composition. This study looked at how at-risk drinking among older adults changes over time.

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For consumers, parents and even teens, understanding terminology and the truth about e-cigarettes can be confusing. UAB physicians debunk common e-cigarette myths with truths.

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An innovative, cost-effective program in Western New York provides medication-assisted treatment to opioid use disorder patients in emergency departments (EDs) and rapidly transitions them into long-term treatment within about 48 hours.

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Rising rates and doses of prescription opioids may be a warning sign of an increased risk of death – even for patients not recognized as having opioid use disorder (OUD), reports a study in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

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To support the the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout, Quit & Stay Quit Monday, an initiative of The Monday Campaigns and the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, are introducing a new “Monday Quit Kit” for individuals and tobacco cessation professionals that can help quitters stay on track over the long haul.

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Adolescent marijuana use may alter how neurons function in brain areas engaged in decision-making, planning and self-control, according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The findings are the result of an animal model study focused on the structural development of the prefrontal cortex, or PFC, which controls high-level cognitive functions.

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a team from Penn and CHOP have received a major grant from the Federal Highway Administration, an agency within the United States Department of Transportation, to help curb distracted driving. The team will investigate strategies — such as redesigning insurance discounts — for reducing cell phone use while driving.

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Adolescents with a particular variant of an opioid receptor gene have less response in a part of prefrontal cortex that evaluates rewards, compared to those with the other version of the gene, say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC). The study will be presented Nov. 5 at Neuroscience 2018, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (abstract #7517).

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Individuals who seek help for an alcohol use disorder (AUD) may be presented with either of two treatment goals: abstinence or no heavy-drinking days, which are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in testing medications to treat AUD. However, these goals may fail to work for individuals who seek to reduce their drinking. An alternative approach uses the World Health Organization (WHO) drinking risk levels – very high, high, moderate, and low – which are defined in terms of average alcohol consumption in grams per day. A reduction in these levels may provide a useful third option in assessing the success of AUD treatment. This study examined the association between reductions in WHO drinking risk levels and improvements in physical health and quality of life among individuals with alcohol dependence.

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No, sitting is not the new smoking, despite what countless newspaper articles have peddled in recent years.

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Penn Medicine emergency department physicians are calling for more readily available testing strips to identify the presence of fentanyl in patients experiencing a drug overdose, and a rapid, coordinated response among health care providers and city agencies to help curb overdoses and identify high potency high risk drugs.

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Research shows that many soldiers who have never been deployed experience negative emotions such as feelings of guilt and decreased value, connectedness, and camaraderie within their unit. Additional research shows that US Army Reserve/National Guard (USAR/NG) soldiers are at high risk for alcohol misuse. This study examined whether emotions related to non-deployment among USAR/NG soldiers contributed to an increased risk of alcohol misuse.

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Students from low-income neighborhoods who attended a high-achieving school were less likely to abuse marijuana than those who weren’t offered admission. By 11th grade, the risk of misusing the drug was cut by half in boys at top-performing schools.

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• Individuals with kidney disease have a higher likelihood of using prescription opioids, and the prevalence of prescription opioid use in the chronic kidney disease population has increased in recent years. • Certain factors are associated with opioid drug use in patients with chronic kidney disease. • Results from the study will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2018 October 23–October 28 at the San Diego Convention Center.

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People who play video games to cope with anxiety are more likely to have symptoms of gaming disorder, according to a new ISU study. Researchers say higher levels of stress increased the risk for addiction.

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Claims by the tobacco industry that heated tobacco products (HTPs) are safer than conventional cigarettes are not supported by the industry’s own data and are likely to be misunderstood by consumers, according to research published in a special issue of Tobacco Control.

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Researchers at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine have discovered that targeting a specific signaling pathway could potentially provide a new therapeutic avenue for treating Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, the most severe fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

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People who were exposed to the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center (WTC) have elevated rates of alcohol- or drug-related death, reports a study in the October Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

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While nearly all Americans say they would choose an alternative to opioid pain relievers following surgery, few patients are talking to their health care provider about it, according to the Mayo Clinic National Health Checkup.

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When alcohol enters the brain, it causes neurons in a specialized region called the ventral tegmental area, or VTA — also known as the “pleasure center” — to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that produces those feel-good sensations, and tells the brain that whatever it just experienced is worth getting more of.

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A new Florida State University College of Medicine study in mice produced results that suggest nicotine exposure in men could lead to cognitive deficits in their children and grandchildren. Further studies will be required to know if the same outcomes seen in mice would apply to humans.

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E-cigarette brand JUUL’s Twitter handle is attracting adolescents to the point that at least a quarter of its followers appear to be under age 18. Many of these minors – to whom it is illegal to sell nicotine-delivery products – are retweeting JUUL’s messages, amplifying its advertisements.

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It is estimated that only 20 to 24 percent of individuals with an alcohol use disorder (AUD) ever receive treatment of any kind for their disease. Most of the reasons given for not seeking treatment relate to the person’s inability or unwillingness to attend traditional in-person treatment. One alternative may be “contingency management.” This is a method in which a reward is given – for example, money, privileges, or prizes – once abstinence from alcohol or the drug in question is verified. This study examined the effectiveness of providing a financial reward for alcohol abstinence.

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A new study shows wide variation in prescriptions of sedative drugs, called benzodiazepines, to people with Medicare coverage. Some counties, especially in southern and rural western states, had three times the level of sedative prescribing as others. The study also highlights gaps at the level of individual prescribers: Some primary care providers prescribed sedatives more than six times more often than their peers.

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New research from Duke and Yale universities shows flavorings are transforming more than marketing. The chemical additives react to e-liquid, or e-juice, creating new compounds that could trigger irritation and inflammation when inhaled.

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Will focus on adolescents, young adults, and their families, creating new, scalable models of care that can be disseminated nationally

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Flavoring and additive ingredients in e-cigarettes may increase inflammation and impair lung function, according to new research. The study, published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology—Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, also found that short-term exposure to e-cigarettes was enough to cause lung inflammation similar or worse than that seen in traditional cigarette use. The research was chosen as an APSselect article for October.

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Early adoption of tobacco control efforts in California lead to fewer people ever smoking, reduced the amount used by those who do smoke and helped smokers quit at a younger age — when their risk of developing lung cancer is lowest. As a result, lung cancer deaths are 28 percent lower in California compared to the rest of the country and the gap is widening each year by almost a percentage point.

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Vaping has surpassed all other forms of tobacco use in middle- and high-schoolers. New research led by Mark Olfert, an associate professor in the West Virginia University School of Medicine, suggests if teenagers continue to vape into adulthood, the cardiovascular effects may, by some measures, be as dire as if they’d smoked cigarettes.

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Samaan and his research team at McMaster set out to find studies on boys and girls under age 18 with exposure to recreational or medicinal cannabis. The use of cannabis included smoked, ingested and other modes of exposure to cannabis products.

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Approximately $1.7 million in new funding from the National Institutes of Health will enable a multidisciplinary team of University of Illinois at Chicago researchers to build a reference library of bacteria to help scientists quickly identify bacterial strains and analyze their disease-fighting potential.

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The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) commends the U.S. Congress for its passage of a comprehensive, bipartisan package to support the prevention and treatment of opioid addiction in America.

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Analyzing data from more than 400,000 people, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that consuming one to two drinks four or more times per week — an amount deemed healthy by current guidelines — increases the risk of premature death by 20 percent.

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A study led by researchers at CHU Sainte-Justine in Montreal confirms that cannabis use is related to impaired and lasting effects on adolescent cognitive development.

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In a study examining the potential impact of 2001-02 Medicaid expansions by Arizona, Maine and New York – expansions that occurred just prior to the rise in overdose mortality nationwide – researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that from the time of these expansions through 2008, overdose mortality rates (mostly driven by fatal overdoses of opioids) rose significantly less in the expansion states than in non-expansion states.

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Social workers at West Virginia University are leading the way in opioid treatment and prevention in West Virginia, where overdose rates are the highest in the U.S.

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Previous research has shown that violent crimes are associated with greater access to alcohol outlets. It is unclear, however, whether on-premise outlets such as bars, or off-premise outlets such as liquor stores, have a stronger association with violent crimes. This study used more precise measurement of outlet locations to examine associations between violent crimes and access to different types of alcohol outlets in Baltimore, Maryland.

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A new study from researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) found that alcohol outlets in Baltimore that sell alcohol for off-premise consumption (such as liquor stores and beer and wine stores) have a stronger association with incidences of violent crimes, including homicides, aggravated assaults, sexual assaults, and robbery, than alcohol outlets in Baltimore where alcohol is bought and consumed on-site, such as bars and restaurants.

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In this issue, find research on Australian gun control and suicide/homicide rates, crowding and commute effects on child health, tractor rollover protection, and the effect of web-based CBT telenovelas on addiction treatment.

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Researchers work with African American and American Indian communities to identify effective tobacco cessation strategies